Samtaro
by Squick
Summary: A Hamtaro/Quantum Leap Crossover of Epic Proportions
1. Default Chapter

It was an average Saturday at Laura's house. Her parents were at a company loyalty seminar across town, and wouldn't be back for two days. The house was quiet. So quiet, in fact, that you could barely hear the squeaks of the Ham-Ham friends crawling through the secret passage up to Laura's room to find their buddy.  
  
Hamtaro's thighs glistened in the morning sunlight as he diligently ran up his hamster wheel. Laura couldn't help but briefly pause from her 48-hour marathon of textbook memorization to notice how well-defined his furry, rodent legs were. She chewed the end of her pen and took brief, furtive glances at his tiny arched back as he heaved gasps halfway through his daily cardiovascular workout.  
  
The wheel ran down to a gentle halt as Hamtaro wiped his brow, removed his wrist weights, and took liberal sips from his miniature Aquafina. A strange blue light surrounded him and then engulfed his whole body. The next thing he knew, he was in a strange white room. Hamtaro looked around and wondered where he was. Soon he would have all of his questions answered.  
  
  
**********  
  
  
Sam looked around, unable to figure out where he had leaped this time. Where was Al? Always gone at the wrong time. He was in...some sort of giant cage. It was like a huge replica of the kind you keep a pet mouse in.  
  
"I...must've...leaped into...an actor this time," he surmised. Sam sat down in the pine shavings and scratched his head. Being out of plain sight, Laura started wondering what Hamtaro was doing. She put down her pen and peered over his cage. Sam could see the dark shadow eclipsing the bright light, and held his hand over his eyes as he stared up to see what was darkening the set. The gentle eyes of the giant fifth-grader beamed back as his own.  
  
"Oh, boy."  
  
  
**********  
  
  
A door slid upwards suddenly, and the whooshing noise startled Hamtaro. An aging, poorly-dressed man walked in and nearly sat on him.  
  
"Er, oops. Sorry, there. I thought the room was empty."  
  
Hamtaro stared at him blankly.  
  
"Oh, right. You don't speak English. Well, if you can understand me:"  
  
Al bent down and yelled very slowly at Hamtaro, "I AM AL. YOU ARE IN THE FUTURE. THE YEAR IS 1999. YOU HAVE SWITCHED BODIES TEMPORARILY WITH A QUANTUM LEAPER NAMED SAM."  
  
Hamtaro didn't know what was going on. This strange man was telling him he was in the future, yet if the year was 1999 then he was three years in the past.  
  
"I'm not getting anywhere with him. I hope he doesn't ruin the couch." Al thought. He decided to give up on explaining anything to Hamtaro and see how Sam was doing.  
  
The door slid up again as Al left. Hamtaro wasn't sure what was going on, or what "quantum leaping" was. But he knew that the only way he was going to get out of this place alive was with a swift military strike. He slipped quickly through an air vent in the floor and crawled blindly through the maze of shafts.  
  
  
**********  
  
  
Sam's heart was beating one hundred times a minute, which was at least 7 beats faster than normal for a hamster. Laura had picked him up and he sat on her bed perplexed by the events unfolding before him. He was some sort of rodent. A hamster, or maybe a tailless mouse. He couldn't help but defecate on the girl's comforter several times out of fear. Just as things couldn't seem any worse, Al showed up.  
  
"Al! What am I doing here?" Sam yelled.  
  
"Uhhh, we don't know yet, Sam." Al looked around at the ornate, pink bedroom. It reminded him a lot of his own as a child. "There's a 50% chance you're here to save Laura's life."  
  
"Laura."  
  
"The uh, little girl there."  
  
"Oh, right. How, why, how am I inside...of a hamster?"  
  
"We're still working on it. Heads up, Sam."  
  
Laura came back to the bed. She crawled under the covers and grabbed Hamtaro with both hands.  
  
"It's time, Hamtaro." She pushed him under the blankets. "Show me the magic again."  
  
"Al!" Sam yelled.  
  
"What, Sam? What? Just do," he made gestures with his hands, "what she wants."  
  
"You have to be kidding, Al. I can't do that kind of a thing."  
  
"Can't do it? Are you crazy, Sam? Do you know how many opportunities you get in life to fit your entire body inside of the vaginal cavity of a 12-year-old Asian girl? Two or three. Maybe four if you're stationed overseas." 


	2. Samtaro Part II

The vent grill popped off and landed on a stack of technical manuals. Hamtaro leaped down and cautiously scanned the room. He was in a storage room. There was so much stuff stored in it that Hamtaro was comfortable making as much noise as he cared to--no one the size of a human was going to make it to the rear of the room before the hamster could safely crawl back up into the duct.  
  
Suddenly something entered his nostrils. It was a familiar smell, but he couldn't quite place it. Hamtaro heard squeaking, and looked around on the floor. Surely enough, he saw a mouse caught in a glue trap about two meters away from him. Hamtaro jumped down and made a vain effort to rescue the mouse.  
  
"Who-who's there?"  
  
Hamtaro stared at the mouse, who was missing both eyes and most of his fur.  
  
"I am Hamtaro. I am from the future."  
  
"Oh. I am Old Gluey."  
  
"Pretty ironic name, considering..."  
  
"Oh, no. That's how I got my name. Five years of living in this storage closet and I've been caught in forty-three glue traps."  
  
"Wow," Hamtaro said in amazement. "You're very resilient."  
  
Old Gluey rolled over on his back and bent his legs up towards his head. Hamtaro stared in curiosity as the patchy mouse dropped his legs forcefully, using the momentum to pull the glue strip off his back with a loud tearing sound. He stood up and rubbed his red, hairless back and grinned.  
  
"Very. Now, which way is west?" He started wandering east and ran into the leg of an unused desk.  
  
"The other way," Hamtaro replied.  
  
Old Gluey turned around and began walking. His foot got caught on the trap and he fell forward, his face smacking into the glue.  
  
"Do you want some help?" Hamtaro asked.  
  
"Eh, could you?"  
  
  
**********  
  
  
Sam was vomiting profusely into the drain of the bathtub, the ice cold water spraying down onto his back from the showerhead ten miles above him. Al stepped through the holographic door and did a double take.  
  
"What are you doing, Sam?"  
  
The rodent wiped his mouth and held his stomach, looking up at Al.  
  
"What does it look like I'm doing, Al?"  
  
"How did you turn on the shower?"  
  
"This is hardly the time for an argument in semantics. Just tell me what you've been able to find out about this."  
  
"Well, actually nothing, Sam."  
  
"What? What about the, the saving the little girl and all of that?"  
  
"I made that up. Honestly, Sam, you're in the future. So we don't really have a lot to go on. Most of the database of information we use when you leap is news clippings and public documents. Since you're three years ahead of the Quantum Leap project, we can't really tell you anything at all."  
  
"What the hell have you been doing all this time then?"  
  
"Well, out of curiosity I went to the Quantum Leap facility of the future. Just to see what was going on."  
  
"And?"  
  
"And uh, it was locked."  
  
"Locked, Al? What do you mean locked?"  
  
"It was uh, locked. You know. The doors were all locked."  
  
"Are you lying?"  
  
"No."  
  
Al opened the holographic door and left.  
  
  
**********  
  
  
Old Gluey had taken Hamtaro back to his home inside the storage room wall. It was full of candles and beads and all sorts of esoteric sights and smells. Hamtaro fell onto a bean bag chair, which was actually just a bean bag, and started rubbing his eyes. Old Gluey put on a robe and disappeared behind a beaded curtain. When he came back, he was pushing a giant pile of alfalfa into the middle of the room.  
  
"Oh, good! I'm starved," said Hamtaro.  
  
"But--"  
  
Before Old Gluey could say anything, Hamtaro had lept out of the beanbag and began munching on the alfalfa.  
  
"But what?" he asked, his cheek pouches stuffed with chewed stems.  
  
"I've never seen anyone eat that much of it in my entire life."  
  
"Really? Us hamsters eat a lot. Especially when it comes to alfalfa!" he began chuckling and cramming his face.  
  
"Yes... alfalfa..."  
  
Old Gluey disappeared behind the curtain again. After a few minutes Hamtaro fell back onto the bean bag, bloated and satiated. His head started getting heavy and tilting to the right. He felt like shuddering as if it were cold, but never quite reaching the vibration part.  
  
"What's-what's happening? I feel ill."  
  
Old Gluey's distorted face appeared several hundred times in front of Hamtaro.  
  
"Ill, Hamtaro?"  
  
"Like that time... when I ate that cold pill because Oxnard told me it was condensed ice cream."  
  
"Ill, Hamtaro?"  
  
"Like that time... when I ate..."  
  
"Hamtaro?"  
  
"Like that..."  
  
"Taro?"  
  
"Like..."  
  
Hamtaro fell into a deep sleep. 


	3. Samtaro Part III

The Ham-Ham friends were disappointed to find Hamtaro was not in his cage. Oxnard began to wonder if his premonition about Hamtaro's death in a fiery automobile accident after travelling through time had come true. Suddenly Laura's bedroom door swung open and its owner appeared. She saw all of the Ham-Ham friends sitting on her desk and backed out of the room slowly.  
  
"I wonder if she saw us." Dexter said.  
  
"No, I doubt it. Otherwise she would have screamed in surprise to see a bunch of rodents sitting on--"  
  
Laura burst into the room screaming, lept over her bed, and came down from her aerial surprise with a heft of her father's sledgehammer. Pashmina was unable to finish her sentence. The Ham-Hams fled in terror as their comrades fell to the mighty blows of the little girl's awkwardly wielded mallet. Sam heard the commotion and rushed in from the bathroom. What the hell was going on? Laura was screeching and swinging a large sledgehammer around in a comical fashion. But what was she trying to hit?  
  
Sam's thoughts were interrupted by the upper half of Dexter's body hitting him in the face.  
  
"WHY GOD, WHY? MEDIC! MEDIC! OH GOD! OH GOD! DEXTER! SOMEBODY CALL A HAMBULANCE! NO! DON'T LEAVE ME, DEXTER!" Stan fell on his knees and began crying.  
  
"So cold... So very cold..."  
  
"Dexter! I'm going for help. I'll find a phone and--"  
  
"Stan."  
  
"What? What is it, Dex?"  
  
"Finish me off."  
  
"But, but. No, Dexter, no. Don't talk like that."  
  
"Stan, I'm dying. It's so painful, Stan. Finsh me off."  
  
Stan started to protest, but gave in to his friend's final wish. He took the dogtags off of Dexter and put them around his own neck.  
  
"Stan."  
  
"Yes, Dexter? Yes? What is it, Dex?"  
  
"Tell my wife I love her."  
  
"You're not--"  
  
"Tell her I should've listened to her."  
  
"You're not married, Dex. I uh, I can't do that."  
  
"Please, Stan. Just tell her for me."  
  
"All, all right, Dexter. I'll tell her."  
  
"Tell who?"  
  
"Your wife."  
  
"I'm not married, Stan. You know that."  
  
"Then why did you ask me to tell your wife you love her?"  
  
"I never said that, Stan.  
  
"Fine."  
  
"No, seriously, Stan. Tell her I love her."  
  
"What the fuck is your problem, Dex? I know you're dying, but stop being such a dick."  
  
"Please, Stan. Just tell her this for me."  
  
"Fine. I'll tell her."  
  
"Who? Tell who what?"  
  
  
**********  
  
  
"Are you awake? Hamtaro?"  
  
Hamtaro's eyes opened slowly. He was on his back; Old Gluey was standing over him.  
  
"Where? Where am I? What happened?" He sat up and looked around.  
  
"Overindulgence, Hamtaro."  
  
He looked down. "Why are my clothes on backwards?"  
  
"Um."  
  
"Why am I wearing clothes to begin with?"  
  
"Those aren't... yours?"  
  
"No. I don't wear clothes."  
  
"Oh. Hm, that's right. I guess I forgot."  
  
"Did you put these clothes on me?"  
  
"Well, yes. The first time anyway."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Uh, nothing. Look, I have to go. I'll be back later. Lock the door when you leave."  
  
Old Gluey removed his tiny wallet and threw some tiny dollar bills at Hamtaro and left. After ten minutes of sitting in a stupor and rubbing his head, Hamtaro stood up and walked to the door. For some reason it was very painful for him to move anything below his torso, and the backwards shirt he donned was less than savory. As he left the mouse house he couldn't help but wonder, "Just what the hell happened to me?"  
  
After an hour of limping back to the vent Hamtaro was able to crawl through the shaft that led to the commissary. Finally he would be able to gather the tools he'd need for his coup of the facility, but first he needed to coerce the cooks into helping him. 


	4. Samtaro Part IV

The commissary was quieting down as customers stopped flowing in and the food preparers started shutting down the cafeteria. The clanging of steel trays and diningware being loaded into the steaming dishwasher provided an excellent cover for Hamtaro to scurry into the kitchen with. Winding some piano wire he had stolen from the piano supply storage closet during an adventure conveniently not documented by this story around his hands, he climbed up onto the highest cabinet in the room, waited for an unsuspecting cook to walk by, and garroted the poor man until he succumbed to Hamtaro, and asphyxiation.  
  
The plucky hamster dragged the cook into a utility closet and swapped clothes with him. Making his way back into the kitchen, Hamtaro whistled and pushed a serving cart full of dishes past the kitchen security guards. He thought he had made it through without incident, but one of the guards double-took him and started to get up. Hamtaro spun around and threw a fork from the cart right into the guard's face.  
  
"Ahhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! It's not even a clean one!" the guard screamed. "Someone ate with this! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" He continued screaming for several minutes and then fell over and died.  
  
Hamtaro looked around cautiously, making sure no one had noticed. Most of the staff had already gone home, and the ones that were there were too busy to hear the guard's pleas for help. He pushed the cart into an empty room and picked up his pace, following the signs all the way to where he wanted to go: the employee lounge.  
  
  
**********  
  
  
"Hamtaro! Where have you been, buddy?" a stranger slapped Sam on the back and shouted gleefully.  
  
"Uh... just somewhere."  
  
The Ham-Ham friends looked at each other in befuddlement. Jingle was the first to break the awkward silence.  
  
"So..."  
  
Suddenly Jingle's head exploded and he was cleverly written out of the rest of the season.  
  
  
**********  
  
  
The cooking staff in the employee lounge cheered and shouted slogans of solidarity as Hamtaro stood on the coffee table compelling his "brothers of the culinary trade" to rally against their common enemy--the scientist bourgeoisie. As he explained his plan for a peaceful demand of better standards of living, Hamtaro made sure to recommend they bring plenty of cutlery for self-defense. Scientists were unpredictable, and had been known to use their "books" and "things" against cook insurrections in the past. They gaily sauntered down the hall wielding cleavers and meat tenderizers, singing the Marseillaise as a festive cook in a tricorner hat played his fife and bobbed his head. The group passed by the security office of the third floor and the guard quickly telephoned his superiors, Mr. Chanticleer and Miss Woolite, about the dancing cooks.  
  
Mr. Chanticleer uneasily set down the phone. "Oh, God."  
  
"They were... dancing?"  
  
"And singing."  
  
"I knew we should've paid the extra money to do radon tests of the other half of the building. But I thought, 'What are the odds one half doesn't have radon and the other half does?' Surely it would've seeped onto this half and been detected! Surely!"  
  
"Calm down, Joona." She massaged his shoulders. He moved away from her.  
  
"Please, Sandra. I told you before. Ever since you became a woman, I just... can't. I'm sorry."  
  
The door flew open in an absurdly loud crash and the protesters poured into the security administrator's office. 


	5. Samtaro Part V

Sam lay in a puddle of agony. The Ham-Hams dragged him outside to take part in the annual Japanese Rodent Fun Time Fighting Competition Match, and Pikachu roundhouse kicked him into submission. He'd been kicked in the stomach so many times that he was starting to feel like Jean Claude Van Damme's wife.  
  
"Ugh, I have to... sit this next one out." he said, crawling off the sparring mat in pain.  
  
Maxwell helped him up, saying, "Here, Hamtaro. Come sit in my car and take a load off for awhile." Sam nodded and climbed into the miniature automobile's backseat. Oxnard watched in horror as Sam closed the door and fell asleep in Max's car.  
  
"No... It can't end like this... I have to save him." Oxnard ran towards the car as Maxwell went around back and kicked it with his foot. The chassis stayed in place, but the frame rocked forward.  
  
"Nooooooooooo!" shouted Oxnard, trying desperately to get through the sea of out-of-work Pokemon extras in the audience.  
  
"Have a pleasant trip to Hell, Shamtaro!" Maxwell snickered, putting his whole body into one final push against the trunk. The car started sliding down the hill, although the tires weren't moving. It was headed straight for the ceremonial Japanese Rodent Fun Time Fighting Competition Match Olympic Torch Shrine Place. Sam woke up and stared at the moving car he was in.  
  
  
**********  
  
  
Three years in the past, Hamtaro was caught under the shoe of an angry cook who didn't see him as relations between the mob and management broke down into a bloody fight. He was in incredible pain and couldn't see how the situation could be any worse. Then he remembered what had happened the night before in Old Gluey's house. All of the horrible visions of foul-mouthed longshoremen having their way with him--no wonder he blocked all of it out of memory!  
  
"I wish I was back in my own body!" Hamtaro exclaimed. Three years later, at that very moment, Sam was saying the same thing.  
  
A strange 60s-era transformation took place, and Hamtaro and Sam reverted back to their old bodies.  
  
"Where? Where am I? Chanticleer's office, of course! This is great!" Sam looked around with a renewed sense of happiness. The cook standing on top of him looked down in surprise at the scientist under his feet.  
  
"How could I have missed you all this time?" He called all of the other cooks over, and they soundly thrashed Sam into a paralysis that would both last him his entire life and render him completely sterile.  
  
  
**********  
  
  
Meanwhile, Hamtaro looked round just in time to see the car he was in careen down the hill towards a huge torch. He rolled down the window and squeezed out, barely escaping before the kerosene-laden deathmobile smashed into the shrine. It exploded with a bang. He slowly crawled to his feet and stood up. Soon there were hundreds of onlookers rushing to the scene of the accident. Oxnard was in the fore, shouting something to Hamtaro.  
  
"Hamtaro! You're alive! Oh, thank God it was only a dream!"  
  
"What was?"  
  
"It's a long story. I'll tell you on the way to the hospital."  
  
"The... hospital?" Hamtaro followed Oxnard's eyes down to his broken arm. "Oh."  
  
The hambulance arrived and swerved to a halt. Two paramedics rushed out and put Hamtaro on a stretcher. Oxnard got into the vehicle with the three of them so he could comfort his buddy on the ride to the emergency room. The hambulance pulled out of the shrine and back up the hill. As it climbed, an empty beer bottle rolled from the front seat towards the back of the vehicle. Oxnard picked it up and then dropped it in horror.  
  
"It wasn't a car you crashed in. I remember now! It was... this hambulance!"  
  
The paramedic in the passenger seat turned around and stared at him for a few seconds, before saying, "Well, this was an awfully contrived ending, wasn't it?" Yeah, that's what I thought when I saw Twilight Zone: The Movie. 


End file.
